unfortunately its the kind of caring where someone will forget it the next day. except that while trying to comfort Joyce she’ll probably rollover onto sarah’s hand or get her in a bearhug, just to make monday funny, but i like this ending

@Jabberwocky I assumed it obvious that unintentional remains unintentional. But considering the same poster said “it’s never to late to early in the morning to learn [what lesbians are]…

That’s the context to my response to a specific person that` was not you. And to be clear: It certainly is the wrong time for a person to find out what a lesbian is when said person is drugged and won’t remember the evening.

Not really redundant at all, since male and female are typically terms of gender identification while man and woman are typically terms of physiological and social sex identification… at least in terms of colloquial speech.

Well, I’m guessing that she’s one of those people that doesn’t want to be depended on much. I mean, I’m pretty much lazy just so I won’t have a huge workload around the house, leaving me more time for homework/music/TvTropes/etc.

That’s because girls are weak and passive things, and so if a girl date-rapes somebody, that somebody must have been willing and interested to allow the weak and passive rapist to continue. this is especially true when the person they’re raping is conscious, but still holds even when they’re not.

The above goes out the window if their target is even *more* weak and passive than them, like a small child. There’s a hierarchy here.

Personally, the ones about mistaken circumstances don’t bother me that much, but the one about “hands in places they shouldn’t be is bad, as is the one about Dorothy “experimenting” with an unconscious Joyce.
The fact that we’re just coming off a near date-rape storyline makes it worse, imo.

No. This strip IS cute. What isn’t cute is the place people take it to. So much rage when Ryan appeared to be planning to drug a girl and take advantage of her, and jokes about how cute it would be her female friend took advantage of her instead.

Fairly certain everyone was joking, since Sarah’s obviously not going to do anything. That’s the thing – if it did seem like Sarah was going to take advantage of her, everyone would be yelling “WOAH NOT COOL.” But because that’s never going to happen, people just decided to have a little fun with it, because it’s a comic. Now that the tension is resolved, people want to have fun.

So, are they broken for joking around, or are you broken for making it serious business?

So it’s funny to joke about rape if it’s not likely to occur? So the idea that Joyce might have sex under the influence of roofies (or wake up thinking she did) would be just as cute and giggle worthy to everyone if this was Joe and not Sarah?

To be clear: The ones who are broken are the ones who think rape is a laughing matter under any circumstances. They’re particularly broken if they think it just serious business when the offender is a male, but sweet when the offender is female. That’s just deranged.

Anything can be a laughing matter. For lots of people, laughter is the only and/or best way to cope with adversity, and rape is a pretty big adversity. If I ever got raped, I guarantee you the darkest corners of humor would be one of the few ways I’d even know how to react. When bad things happen to me, jokes are how I conquer the demons. It’s how I reclaim my power, or at least the illusion thereof.

Mind, that doesn’t mean I’m going to engineer a story in which rape is hilarious, because that’s not really what I’m trying to accomplish here, nor do I have a reason to try to accomplish that, plus there’s a good chance I’d fail and I’d rather not risk venturing that territory. (There’s a difference between constructing a story in which something terrible is played as funny and reacting to something terrible in real life with humor.) But don’t say that there’s things you can’t ever ever ever joke about. It’s honestly not true.

I’m engaging in hyperbole. Of course humor can be used to defuse any situation. But making squealing comments about how it might be a good time for Joyce to learn what being a lesbian is, when compared with the utter venom regarding Ryan’s potential intentions (long before clearly stated) is disturbingly hypocritical.

Let’s try it this way: Replace the caring character with Joe. Add the comment: “it’s never to late to early in the morning for a passed out Joyce to learn the joys of premarital sex. 🙂 ”

Sure…. any situation can be funny if handled right. The above is an example of a comment that is in disturbingly poor taste.

Actually, I think people would accept that comment as a standard Joe joke, because we do know that a) Joe is a sex fiend, but b) it’s just a joke, and he would never ever ever do that.

It’s not a male/female thing here. (Well it is for the shippers, but that’s different.) Ryan was presented from the second comic he was in as (at least) wanting to take advantage of Joyce, and we know that Joe would never ever EVER do that. And yet, if Joe was in Sarah’s place, would there still be comments about him “joeing” her? I think there would be.

There’s a scale here. The more ridiculous something is, the more likely it is to be used as a joke. If it’s something believable and terrible, it’s creepy, offensive, and just plain unfunny. If it’s unbelievable and terrible? Why do you think there are so many ridiculous dead baby jokes? (Of course, those aren’t funny for entirely different reasons, namely because 12-year-olds invent them.)

I definitely see where you’re coming from, but none of these people would be responding in the same way if it was actually something occuring, and insulting them is taking this way farther than it needed to go. A “dude, not funny” would have been more appropriate.

Hypocrisy is easily a large part of being human and something people can easily delve into without even noticing. You must have been a hypocrite in some respect at some time in your life. Likely many more times than once.

I think they are implying that the shirt would usually make the healthy puppies even harder to notice through the sweater, but since Joyce’s puppies are so healthy they still stood out. I could be wrong though

I don’t have issues with romantic lesbians (still upset about Leslie X Robin breaking up.), but I do have an issue with everyone always thinking that any love between two people MUST be sexual. Because, like, what other kind of love is there, oh muh gawd.

Can’t two people ever be close friends? Is that the world we live in now?

To be fair, we went around the bend in It’s Walky too, what with Joyce/Joe and Walky/Dina. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but it’s pretty early, and all we’ve got thus far is a fledgling surrogate sister relationship and Monkey Master depression. Anyone could very well still end up with anyone else, and I wouldn’t put it past Willis to throw us a curveball. Or seven.

This is one of the rare situations when I don’t suggest turning it into something sexual. They just seem so perfectly alright as it is, I don’t think they could be any happier having sex (let alone they don’t seem to have any gay tendencies so far, but you never know about that).

Let’s face it, everyone in college, especially when starting out, would like to have someone to rely on as a big sister/big brother. Girls are more in tune to having someone watch their back IMO. Guys are, on average, always trying to play the macho self-reliant card. Look where that gets us.

At times I’ve found her a bit annoying (that’s right, just a bit), but I’ve liked this version of Sarah from the beginning.

But that may have been because I know how it feels to be ostracized (in my case, it wasn’t anything I did or said — people I didn’t even know would just decide they didn’t like me before they ever even met me).

I think it’s just that most of us were quiet. Vocal minority sort of thing (though I don’t actually know if it’s minority/majority/even here). I was annoyed at her for not taking Joyce to the hospital, but aside from that, I’ve always liked Sarah.

Why? I never hated her or said anything against her in the comics, but some of the things she’s said and done have gotten on my nerves. But of course I’m going to think it’s sweet if she shows a softer side to her normally cranky self. And she did protect Joyce, whom I like a lot, so I was already warming up to her.

I think you’re right. When I was at college we had to sleep on twin mattresses. The rooms themselves seem to be sized about right, but at least at my college we didn’t have wallpaper or plaster. The walls were cinder blocks painted white.

Of course, we hadn’t had our dorm building renovated since the Carter administration, but still.

While the newest dorms at my school have double beds, the room assignment method means that only seniors really live there. It’s a bit surprising to mee that we’d see sophomores and first years with double beds, but I don’t know anything about IU, so it’s possible.

Bit more unlikely given that this is a top bunk, and I’m not even sure double bunk beds exist.
If they did, I don’t think Rory and Amy would have been so eager to get rid of them, haha.

Well, here’s the end of the first book, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed it. Dumbing of Age is quite hard to review, honestly, because of the downright enormous and highly plotted storyline. Everything is very deeply woven, and clearly planned out far, far in advance. That makes it very hard to point out the plot holes and loose threads, seeing as how plenty have come by, and been explained as part of a storyline.

First, art. DoA!’s artstyle is generally not very exaggerated in terms of basic design (mostly normal proportions with exaggerated heads), but does exaggerate greatly when characters have extremes of emotion. This usually works, but the exaggerated expressions can occasionally suck the impact out of a dramatic moment, such as Sarah’s reaction to being asked to socialize with Joyce and Dorothy. The backgrounds have decent variation for what is a generally static setting, with the recycled backgrounds being limited to places where it would make sense, such as dorm rooms. The only other problem I have with the art is the occasional dropping of background art, usually when focusing on a characters face, or for a non-standard panel. This is really distracting, and makes the strip seem unfinished, which is jarring for such an otherwise polished work.

As for characters, depth has been handed out sparingly, usually after establishing the character with a strong first impression. The technique of presenting a simple exterior, and then pulling back to reveal a characters deeper motivations isn’t overused, with only Sarah and Roz as clear cut examples. Some characters are left underdeveloped, but my instincts tell me to trust the author will develop them further. Eventually.

The core concept of the strip is simple, rebooting the extended Walkyverse! into a single continuity, leaving only human interaction. This was a major step forward for the author, stripping out the geek humor and shocking swerves typical of Shortpacked! and It’s Walky! for the simpler, and more honest approach. One-off jokes and bit characters are rare compared to the rest of the authors various works, leaving more room for realistic interactions. There are no breaks from continuity or fourth-wall humour, with only the occasional call-back to the Walkyverse! .

The authors engaged with the audience pretty frequently, often stepping in to correct misinformation and answer legitimate questions, but he does seem to engage with trolls or overly critical fans a tad too eagerly. In my opinion, the swift application of the banhammer is the best solution. Trolling is a bit less frequent that in the comments section for Shortpacked!, but the mostly shared fanbase is eager to attack any displaying a hint of homophobia or a slut-shaming attitude, leaving the door wide open for thuggish behaviour.

Storyline: 8/10, Very Good. Clearly a complex and carefully arranged plot, with only occasional “Idiot Ball” or “Because the plot says so” coincidences. Well written and engrossing.

Dialogue: 7/10, Good. Usually succinct, but a slight tendency to drift into wall-of-text territory when a character has a point to make.

Art: 7/10, Good. Expressive, with distinctive character designs, but not especially detailed, a la “Questionable Content”

Humor: 3/10. Bad. I only laughed out loud at around one in ten strips, with about a fifth being amusing or better. A great deal of comics have no humor intended at all.

Pacing: 6/10. Decent. Some strips seemed unnecessary, but only a handful were plodding or slow.

Political correctness/ Offensiveness: 8/10 Very Good. A good array of groups and values presented without judgement or an issue being made of it. Joyce’s character handles the issue of offensive behaviour without malice interestingly, without outright condemning any group. The only exception being Billie, with her alcohol addiction being the butt of several jokes.

Regularity: 10/10. Perfect: David Willis has not, to my knowledge, missed a single scheduled update by more than 60 seconds for the lifespan of the comic, the only exceptions being bonus weekend comics at the beginning and first anniversary of the strip.

Overall quality: 7/10. Good. A solid, realistic, believable work from a veteran of the Webcomics industry. David Willis proves he can present believable characters and incredibly complex plots.

My Enjoyment: 8/10. Very Good. I always anticipate the release, and I’ll take a minute out of pretty much anything to check my phone for the newest update and leave a comment or two.

On a personal note, I hope to do more reviews, perhaps at the end of each day/storyline. I’ll repost this on Monday’s comic in case people miss this post.

I’m of the opinion that 3/10 for the humor score is unreasonably low. I saw a lot more than 1/5 strips being amusing. Furthermore, I think that judging a comic’s humor should be based on strips that were intended to be funny, not the comic overall. When a comic undergoes a serious arc, I don’t see it as reasonable for that to begin detracting from the comic’s ability to deliver humorous punchlines. I think that DoA probably falls at least at a 7 when it’s trying to be funny.

Also, I’m left to wonder why political correctness is a category to be examined at all. An artistic medium should not be restricted to what is inoffensive, and in fact some of the greatest art was intended to be INCREDIBLY offensive. While I greatly appreciate it when an artist approaches their subject matter tastefully, provided they can justify doing so on an intellectual level I won’t object to having subject matter addressed in a very rude manner.

Maybe you examine this criterion as a way to warn the incredibly sensitive about the art’s relative level of potential offensiveness while not intending to reward pursuit of inoffensiveness? In other words, it’s more of a “Look, this could tick you off. You’ve been warned. Proceed at your own peril.” sort of thing? I can accept examining offensiveness for a practical reason like that.

Ok, the rating on humour is my opinion of the strips level of humour as a a whole, rather than how funny it is when the author is trying to be funny. I’d give a serious film with effective, but rare, comic relief moments a 1 or a 2.

I rate offensiveness because it takes real skill to handle some subjects without being unfair, and it can really take away from the enjoyment of something if i think theres prejudice or offensiveness present. It’s the same reason I lowered my rating of Phantom Menace because of Jar-Jar, and Transformers 2 because of Skids and Mudflap.

Yes, because emulating the Tim Buckley Method is such a winning option.

Look, here’s the thing: ‘overly critical fan’ is about as vague a term as you can ask for, and in fact just sounds like a good all-encompassing term to use when shutting up any voice of dissension. I actually really like it that Willis holds his own in the comments; he’s not afraid to get dirty and defend his work–if he were to simply ban people, you’d easily get people crying out that he’s simply too thin-skinned…just before they too got banned. He allows freedom of opinion here, which I find far more healthy (to have arguments and discussions out in the open) than to have ‘shut up and drink your water’.

If I define humour as successful only if I laugh out out in real life, then most comedies including my most favourite ones would score very poorly as I am a tough nut to crack these days.

If the subject matter is able to raise an amused smile and occassionally a muffled chuckle from me, then it is a success, if you catch me in the right frame of mind and I luled in real life, then that is an awesome bonus.

LP, to begin with, I agree with your general assessment and a number of your specific points as well. Particularly, I agree with you about the strength of DoA’s realistic setting and tone; as a cartoonist, I love metahumor and fourth-wall crud, and I find it hard to stay away from them. I have a lot of respect for the commitment Willis has shown to the down-to-earth-ness of his characters and setting in this strip. But agreeing with each other is boring, so let’s get down to the parts where we differ.

First, I don’t think the way and frequency with which the author engages with the community is relevant to a review. Yes, webcomics tend to have a higher degree of author/audience interaction. It’s still not part of the comic itself. (Okay, except with Homestuck.) What the creator says down here in the comment thread, in my opinion, is no more relevant to a review than a remark he might make in an email or during a convention panel. You might cite his asides in the review, but I can’t see the point of a whole section on author interaction.

Second, while most of your categories appear to be numerical ratings of the strip’s quality, “Political correctness/ Offensiveness” and “Humor” appear to operate differently. Apparently, these function more like sliding scales of how potentially offensive or funny (respectively) the work is. According to your metric, an excellent dramatic work
which tells the serious story that it set out to without ever cracking a smile could easily score rock-bottom in the humor department.
Amidst all those other numerical assessments of quality, the humor “rating” could be misleading.

Instead of numerical scores for humor and political correctness, why not give a qualitative assessment instead? This could be a couple of sentences or a paragraph on each, or even something as simple as: “Tone: Slightly serious” or “Controversial material: moderate.” I think it’d be clearer and more helpful to handle these categories in a similar way.

Hmm. My score on humor is not an assesment of quality, no. A better measurement for quality would the humor value of strips with punchlines, or are at least intended to be amusing. I’ll amend that when I repost the review on Monday.

I stand by my rating system for offensiveness though, because of my opinion that the inclusion of stereotypes or offensive material is usually a symptom of bad writing, and affects my enjoyment greatly. To repeat an example I gave to Asuka. L.S., The presence of characters like “Skids and Mudflap”, racially insensitive caricatures, in Transformers 2 did serious damage to my enjoyment of the film, with their “antics” being a poor mans substitute for effective comic relief.

AMENDMENT TO REVIEW. In the case of the humor score, 3/10 would be for how funny the work is overall, and 5/10, Okay, would be the score of the strips that seem intended to be funny.

Hmm the main thing I’m wondering about is whether this will result in the beginning of some sort of obsessive spiral from Sarah.
It seems that Sarah sees Joyce as kindred spirit, although their reasoning is very different.
Also I’m not sure if the Joyce/Walky relationship will actually happen in this world since Sarah will probably actively try to prevent it.

I honestly think she irked everyone at some point in the comic. She irked me most in the Walky and Joyce comic when she was the mean guy’s assistant in getting Joyce thrown in jail (though she toned the irkness down some when she ended up helping them).